Controlled Self-Assembly Behavior of an Amphiphilic Bisporphyrin-Bipyridinium-Palladium Complex: From Multibilayer Vesicles to Hollow Capsules

摘要

The construction of supramolecular assemblies with well-defined nano-structures is of great interest owing to their potential applications in diverse fields such as molecular electronics, light-energy conversion, and catalysis.[1], [2] The ability to control the specific shapes, dimensions, and pattern formation of supramolecular organization by nonconvalent interactions is still a challenging task in the materials field.[3] Nanoscale hollow capsules represent an important class of materials because their unique structural, optical, and surface properties may lead to a wide range of applications, such as capsule agents for drug delivery, filters, coatings, chemical catalysis, or templates for functional architectural composite materials.[4] Various efforts have been made to prepare inorganic[5] and organic[6] hollow capsules. Hollow polymer spheres were produced by McDonald et al. through the encapsulation of hydrocarbon solvents within polymer particles during an emulsion polymerization.[7] C60-derived amphiphiles have a tendency to form closed submicrospheres with a bilayer shell below the critical aggregation concentration and multibilayer vesicles above the critical aggregation concentration.[8] Meanwhile, 1D nanotubes and nanowires have attracted much attention because of their unique optical, electronic, and mechanical properties, which result in promising applications in electrical and optoelectronic nanodevices.[9]